In the same way that metrics and analytics are being used more and more accurately by marketing departments to make decisions, Human Resources departments are finding that the data collected is just as useful when getting insight into the corporate workforce. This new opportunity arises in a truly competitive talent acquisition and retention era. In mot likelihood this opportunity is not being taken advantage of by most companies. Through recent research done by IBM Smarter Workforce Institute there have been some findings that demonstrate how the application of HR is actually seen and used. Initially, it demonstrates that HR professionals have been highly influenced by the fact that the availability of new data sources, the regulatory issues and the new labor market trends all point towards using analytics. From an internal perspective, they find challenges in the workforce and strategic shifts that continue to point HR in the same direction. Let’s analyze those driving forces in a bit more detail.
The labor market trends offer a much more flexible market, that allows the workforce the be a lot more transitory. At the same time, with a more transient workforce you’ll find that there are clear shortages in skills, which leads to a more globalized workforce in the search of finding just the right talent. Another external driver has been the regulatory and compliance issues that have arisen such as legal requirements, risk management and the increasing need to have the upmost transparency. Finally, external market data is more accessible, as well as partner data and the increase in social business and collaboration has also made the access data a promoter of analytics in HR. Some internal drivers like shifts in strategic decisions are just as important. These will lead to ongoing business transformation, a variety of mergers and acquisitions. Which in all of these transitions, will most likely have at least one leadership change. Not to mention the pressing challenges that HR professionals are faced with like retaining top talent, which you can read more about on the Jason Hanold blog, or increasing employment engagement and productivity. HR professionals have their hands full and some are already raising awareness of how analytics can help them make the right decisions. Besides, simply realizing the importance of analytics it will come down to mandates given by mature companies that are ready to obtain and use workforce analytics. This means that companies have to start creating data governance, increasing awareness and know-how of data analytics, as well as seeing how this new trend fits into what they organization already has.
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With the dawn of Generation D companies, or the digital generation organizations, there is a substantial increase in how often they rely on predictive analytics to make a decision or inform a process. Since some companies are forerunners in this digital race, then if you are just starting it is actually good news. You can take the lead from those who are venturing into workforce analytics and make strives in your organization. Although, most companies are looking at workforce analytics as a simple report that was stored somewhere, until the data was required to figure out a particular situation. It is time that this viewpoint changes and more companies and organizations begin to see the advantages to using workforce analytics in everyday decision-making processes, without leaving aside the human factor of Human Resources. It becomes easier in this technological day and age to obtain and analyze the data, but that does not mean that the limitations shouldn’t be kept in mind. By using the numbers to solely drive decisions, will for sure remove that human factor mentioned previously from the process and this should never happen. HR professionals need to learn to use this data to their advantage and in this way make better decisions. So, at the end of the day all of this data will become a tool to make not only reports, but to predict the behavior of the workforce and the organizations they work in.
When this predictive method is used in HR metrics, there are sometimes a bit more considerations required. The inconvenience that some have faced is that, different from other lines of the business that attempt the same process, they cannot simply analyze the problems within the Human Resources departments. They need to go beyond this and explore other uses for it like analyzing the direct correlation between the flight risk and the amount of training received, or relate the onboarding process to the time the person will remain in the company. And although some of these may crossover to other lines of business, they should be led by the HR has to make the right decisions about the talent that they are investing in.